A man held hostage by Somali pirates says he was bemused when he encountered a crowd of eye patch-wearing, plastic sword-wielding women on the lecture circuit earlier this month.

Colin Darch , 75, said Thursday that his host, a southwest England chapter of the education-focused Women’s Institute, seemed to have thought he was going to speak about historical ‘shiver me timbers’ pirates, rather than the modern-day bandits terrorizing the Indian Ocean.

Darch, a retired sailor who has written a book and given lectures about his 2008 kidnapping, says his audience was sheepish over the mix up.

He says, “I think they were worried I might be a bit upset that they were trivializing it, but I thought it was funny.”